Isn't the implication that salaries will go down, but your response is assuming the GP is naively thinking salaries will go up?

I re-read what I wrote, and I can't imagine that interpretation unless they don't understand who the "buyers" are in a "buyer's market"

Employers? Thus pushing wages down? Am I being stupid?

Correct. Sorry, when I said "that interpretation" I was referring to the comment you responded to, not yours.

Do you think I mean salaries will go up? That's not what a "buyer's market" means. It means there's more supply, so the buyers (employers) can pay less than in the past.

Assuming you understand what I meant: As for being naive, that's hardly true; my opinion comes from experience. When the bubble burst in the early 2000s, you saw a ton of developers looking for work. This pushed salaries down, even for senior and advanced developers.

I think the idea was that the truly exceptional would only survive- and all the nearly exceptional and less competent would be in other fields. As a result, supply would plummet because no one would hire anybody less than the best.

I think the more appropriate analogy from the 2001 bust is if those fields turn into similar to professional sports where you have to be unimaginably, talented and skilled and disciplined, and everybody else is playing in the rec league fact for nothing